The Planet of the Apps: The Good, The Bad, and The Funny

By Danny Murphy 

Courtesy of Flickr

There seem to be apps for nearly everything these days. In 2015, there were over 1.6 million apps available for Android and over 1.5 million available for iPhone. Over 1000 apps are submitted every day to the Apple’s App Store. In all likelihood, apps are being created for Android at the same rate or faster. Welcome to The Planet of the Apps. 

Apps are ostensibly created to help users of the app in some way. However, there’s another part of the app story that many users are blissfully unaware of. When you sign up for an app you have to agree to the provider’s terms of service, which are in fine print that nobody ever reads. Generally, the terms include an agreement that the provider can collect, use, and sell data based on your use of the app. The data gets crunched so that the provider, or whoever buys the data, can determine what products and services it can send very targeted ads to you about. 

How to Safely Whet Your Appetite for Smartphone Apps

By Hector Cisneros

Does the public’s uncontrollable appetite for free smartphone apps also make you vulnerable? Right now there are approximately 4,000,000 apps combined that are available in the top four app stores. Are these apps being checked before being released to the public? Are we vulnerable as users by downloading free apps on our smart phones? Could we be compromising our security and financial information by using these apps? In this episode you will learn the truth about using free apps, how to stay safe, and what to look for when deciding “to get an app for that”. So stay tuned and turn onto this week’s Working The Web To Win and learn “how to safely whet your appetite” for smart phone apps.